only on slashdot can you suggest people get divorced over dungeons and dragons:) personally I'm sitting at home with meh kids, going through all that old SRD stuff I have hacking up for all my personalized utilities I've been meaning to code for a couple of years. I'd rather my girlfriend not be an "NPC" right now, though. (Rolls for charisma... gets a date?)

a) Why must people invoke the version flame war?
b) Oh well, now it's invoked, might as well take part. 3.5ed is kinda iffy, and struck me as more of a recollection of all the errata into the core books than anything, but 3rd ed is no way just exploiting people for money. It's easily better than 2nd ed, which I found clunky and confusing as all hell. Down with 2nd ed, up with 3rd ed!

Well, when 3.0 came out and I went through the PHB, I freaking hated it as well. Then it started dawning upon me: I play games to have fun, not look up tables. These are a few reasons that crop up as to why I ended up preferring the 3.x line:

The standardized, easy to mentally calculate, attribute bonuses are a definite plus that couldn't be easily retrofitted into 2nd Ed.

Having armour class go up and having a Base Attack Bonus rather than a THAC0 is exactly the same, only it's actually more intuitive (higher BAB = better, higher AC = better).

Simplifying the weapon tables was a good thing too. Why oh why does a longsword inflict more damage to big targets than small ones anyway? Why does it inflict more damage on large targets when broad swords inflict less? In a game that has little to no aspiration to be historical, why do we have to have separate stats for 20 slightly different polearms? Streamlining these things and just allowing you to call your generic polearm whatever you want is a move towards better roleplay, not worse.

Saving Throws! That was the first thing that made me realize that 3rd Ed was actually better than 2nd Ed. Saving throws based on the type of the effect rather than its source makes so much more sense. When you get a death ray, in 2nd Ed you have to figure out if it comes from a wand, or perhaps a breath weapon. Oh wait, death magic is a category on its own. In 3.0, it's a standard ranged touch attack for the ray to hit you, and a fortitude save to resist the effect. Physical fortitude against a Death Ray, makes sense. Sure, if it were a psionic death ray that turned you into a vegetable, perhaps a Willpower save would be more appropriate, but at least you have a standard to go by.

The class restrictions system also comes to mind. Why did humans dual-class and demi-humans multi-class? Why did demi-humans have a level cap? Not to mention the horrible rules for how multi-classing and dual-classing work. And the different XP progressions for each class. All of these scream out "we couldn't adequately balance the classes/races so they were comparable in power at the same level, so we came up with a hack and called it a day". The 3.0 class system isn't perfect, but at least it managed to keep the "humans are more versatile" theme they always wanted, while simplifying the levelling and multi-classing processes immensely (they opened up the way for prestige class abuse too, but that's a different story).

All in all, I'd call these very fundamental changes that justify a 3rd Edition, all of them perfectly sensible (unless you're the sort whose notion of fun involves looking up tables because the system can't be consistent). Granted, I still don't like the feat system, it feels tacked on, and way too artificial. But that's a small price to pay for all the pluses (and a powergamer's paradise too, to boot).

all very good points, but my i refresh your memory ? The day 3rd edition came out wotc recalled all 2nd edition books, to destroy them, so you couldn't keep playing 2nd (that was what they hoped anyway)... WTF ???

I worked in a Comic and Card shop at the time 3rd Ed came out and there isn't a sinister reason behind the recall. The fact is, the recall was done to make sure that stores didn't refuse to carry 3.0 books due to having 2nd Ed books still. Our store was small and if the owner couldn't have ripped those covers and sent them in for credit, he wouldn't have ordered 3rd Ed until he was out of 2nd for certain.

I am having a great time since returning to play after twenty years. Some of us at work have a lunch session once or twice per week. I think DnD is going to be around forever because there is endless material and the rules just continue to build in order to give the game more things to track.

I work in a comic book store where one of these game days took place. The DM I had was good, but there was this really ugly fat chick who talked too much and had no idea what she was doing which was annoying. I didn't really mind the two kids and their father playing because I saw it as a good thing for them to be doing together and for the kids to get a taste of a different adventure. That said, the adventure itself was only combat, no puzzles, no roleplaying, barely any skill use. It was just fight after